


A Blueprint In The Sand

by iwanna_seeyou_undoit



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Misunderstandings, but just a teeny tiny smattering of it, sex is alluded to but there is no actual smut, so it deals with Zayn leaving, tiny passing mention of past internalised biphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:55:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwanna_seeyou_undoit/pseuds/iwanna_seeyou_undoit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Hello Nick. Thanks for coming by. It’s good to see you.” Nick bloody Grimshaw is standing on Louis’ doorstep.</p><p>Or, </p><p>Louis is too sick to go to America for a week of press and the only person left to look after him in London is Nick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Blueprint In The Sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacesbetweenseconds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacesbetweenseconds/gifts).



> Title from [Drawing Board](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAvFgITWFvU) by George Ezra which is perfect and very Tomlinshaw.
> 
> [Here](http://stylanarry.tumblr.com/tagged/sickfic/) is the tag I used for inspiration if any of you want to give it a looksie.
> 
> This was so fun to write and it feels a little bitter-sweet to send it out into the world. I kind of took your prompt for Gryles and switched the characters, so sorry this isn't your exact prompt. I know you wanted Canon Compliant, but I had to take a few liberties with timelines. Nevertheless, I hope this is something like what you wanted! I feel like there is so much more I could have written for this, but I had to check myself or it would have ended up being 30k long, with no plot as such. 
> 
> Thank you to [Dayna](http://ladsandstuff.tumblr.com/), my lovely lovely beta who let me ask her about every little thing and didn't get frustrated, and you put up with my over use of the word 'and'. Any remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I don't know any of the people mentioned in this fic, and obviously I don't claim to know anything about them, or that any of this actually happened. If you are easily triggered, please see the end notes for more detailed tags.

****

 

The thing about having a generally strong immune system, is that when you do get ill, you get _ill_. Painful, ‘I-might-hack-up-a-lung-but-after-my-head-explodes’ ill.

It’s not something Louis’s used to - being sick. He’d never really been a kid to take sick days at school, and maybe that had something to do with his mum being a nurse and seeing straight through the ruse of a bit of blended homemade sick, but even so. Since X-Factor, he can count on one hand the times he’s been unwell enough to warrant staying in bed.

So of course Louis would get the bloody norovirus’ evil third cousin two days before he’s set to leave to America on an epic, week long promo tour for the next album.

Louis’s been sulking for the past two days, and after a particularly miserable Skype call, the lads had apparently elected Harry as the designated cheerer-upper-er. Harry wriggles around until he’s slipped down the back of the sofa and is balancing on the balls of his feet beside Louis.

“You can’t go to America like this,” he sounds sad, like he knows exactly how painful it is for Louis to hear his fears confirmed. “You’ll be miserable and sore and no use to anybody. Sorry, love,” he nudges his head into Louis’ shoulder, “but it’s true.”

Harry’s right, is the thing. Louis will spend the entirety of the trip wanting to be anywhere but sitting on couch after couch answering the same questions about the same menial things. He _knows_ they won’t be asked any of the decent, hard-hitting questions other artists get - they’re One Direction for pete's sake. The best they’ll get is a question about who wrote what song about which female conquest.

It’s just...he’d like to be there on the off chance they’ll be asked about the writing of the album. It’s what he’s most proud of, probably, out of everything they’ve done as a band. It’s physical proof of the years of blood, sweat, and tears that both he and the rest of the boys have put into getting this far.

It’s a big ‘fuck you’ to all the people looking down their noses at them, saying that they’re only where they are because of their faces and their ‘sex appeal’, a good amount of auto-tune, and other people’s lyrics.

“I- I have to go. I _want_ to go. When have I ever wanted to do a straight week of press, H?” Louis lifts his shoulder, bringing Harry’s head closer to his cheek. He tries not to breathe on him too much. “This...I can do it.”

He contradicts himself by breaking into a strained, rough cough that hurts his throat and adds more pressure to the pounding in his ears. Louis sees Harry’s pitying look, and closes his eyes. “Maybe a hot lemon drink before bed?”

Harry gives him a close-lipped smile that looks almost proud. “Hop up to bed, and I’ll fix it for you,” he gives Louis a gentle shove off the sofa. “One teaspoon of honey enough?”

Louis nods. “‘M not an invalid, you know!” he yells out when he’s halfway upstairs. Having the last word isn’t quite as satisfying when his throat feels like it’s been rubbed raw with sandpaper.

\---

Louis wakes up the following morning and he can’t breathe.

He’s flat on his back and the snotty nose he’d had the day before appears to have invaded the top half of this throat. He groans and regrets it immediately when the pressure behind his temples thuds harder.

After ten minutes of lying spread-eagled in his bed, feeling sorry for himself, Louis rolls out of bed and takes the duvet with him. He cringes when even the thick carpet of his bedroom floor doesn’t stop the cold seeping into the soles of his feet and through the rest of his unrested body.

“Why are you up?”

Louis walks into the edge of the doorway when he looks up in surprise. “Why are you sneaking up on me?” His voice is hoarse and talking hurts even more than it had last night.

Harry folds his arms across his chest. “You should be in bed.”

Louis rubs his elbow, still sore from where he’d knocked it on the door frame. “No. I should be packing.” They leave to America the next morning - he’d spent the past couple of days procrastinating packing his suitcase and now he can’t put it off any longer.

Harry grabs his shoulder. “There’s no way you’re coming with us, Louis. You look even worse than yesterday.”

“Oh, thanks Harry. Really.”

“No I- I didn’t mean it like that,” Harry frowns at him - knows exactly when Louis’s being difficult on purpose. “You’re still so sick.”

“I’m still coming. I can recover on the flight.”

Harry just blinks at him, slow and frustrated. “You hate planes and planes hate you. You’ll get worse.”

“Fine then,” Louis swallows around the urge to cough. “I’ll tough it out.”

“And then they’ll say you’re on drugs, or...like, hungover,” Harry tugs gently on the edge of Louis’ duvet.

Which, wow. Harsh.

“Don’t hold back, Harry.” But Louis knows he’s right - he’s in no state to make a ten hour flight, let alone sit through days on end of interviews. He sighs. “Fine. I’ll stay here. But I’m not going back to bed. I’m not dying.”

Less than two hours later, he’s in bed - tucked in underneath a mountain of blankets and with a stock-pile of tissue boxes on his bedside table.

\---

Louis wakes up to an incessant buzzing noise, and for a few moments he thinks it’s just another symptom of his flu, but it fades when he tugs a pillow over his head so he resigns himself to ignoring the door until whoever it is gives up and goes away.

He vaguely remembers being woken up earlier (much, much earlier) by Liam spooning up behind him, Harry sitting on his feet, and Niall and Zayn peering down at him with equal parts disgust and pity on their faces. Zayn had nudged Niall who’d leaned across Louis to poke Liam who’d cleared his throat, and Harry had muttered something about having organised someone to come around to look after Louis.

Louis had protested as vocally as he could at five AM, and he’d fallen asleep before he could summon enough presence of mind to even clear his throat enough to launch a proper veto effort.

He’s thinking about different ways to castrate Zayn - he’d expected something like this from Harry, and the others were easily persuaded, but Zayn is just as terrible of a patient as Louis, and he should have known better - when he realises the person at the door isn’t giving up.

If anything, the buzzing is becoming more frequent.

He lies on his back for a few more minutes, wondering if he can make his designated nurse disappear just by thinking about it hard enough, before he gives up on having a lie in and goes to answer the door. Or tell them to piss off and leave him be.

The door opens and… “What are you doing here?”

“Hello Nick. Thanks for coming by. It’s good to see you.” Nick bloody Grimshaw is standing on Louis’ doorstep.

“Harry isn’t in.” Louis doesn’t know how to process this, his head’s clogged with shock and snot.

Nick rolls his eyes. “I know,” he holds out a travel mug and, oh. Louis hadn’t seen that before. “He told me I should bring you a cuppa.”

“Right,” Louis takes the steaming cup from him and his hands prickle with the heat of it. His eyes flicker up to Nick’s tired eyes and he shivers, misses his duvet and wonders idly if he could crawl inside the mug - settle down somewhere near the bottom and live a lovely warm life.

It’s the cold rather than anything else that makes him step back and invite Nick inside. “Suppose you’re gonna be after a drink too then, are you?”

“Ta, love. White, no sugar.” Nick’s shirt (Louis’s pretty sure it’s actually one he pinched from Harry) is almost falling off one shoulder, he looks perfectly healthy, and he’s making himself right at home on the couch. Louis should put salt in his tea just to spite him.

There’s a misconception within a large majority of the One Direction fandom that Nick and Louis hate each other. Granted: it’s a misconception that Louis has harboured no ideas about quelling, but he _can_ actually stand to be within three feet of him. Even so, it’s weird to have Nick on his sofa without Harry around to act as a buffer.

Nick’s always been Harry’s friend, just like Stan’s always been Louis’. They all talk to each other, and when they’re slightly tipsy they’ll have a cuddle when they’re all together watching films, but that’s about the extent of it. Louis has never bothered to ask about Nick’s life, and Nick’s never asked about Louis’.

So it’s a bit strange that Nick’s here, endlessly long legs folded into Louis’ sofa, hands wrapped around a cup of tea, and expectant eyes fixed on Louis.

Louis asks again, since between exchanging cups of tea they seem to have forgotten about it, “what’re you doing here?”

Even to his own ears he sounds abrupt, so he tries again, “I mean, if H isn’t about? You never…” he thinks about that one time after Puppy died when Nick had turned up and waited on Louis’ sofa for Harry to arrive. “Nothing’s died has it?”

He’d hate it if Nick was here for a shoulder or something. Louis likes to think of himself as pretty good at condolences, but he’s ill and he’s not prepared for a very large face crying into his neck and snotting all over his duvet.

Nick smirks, “no, but I was lead to believe you’re about to.”

Louis is silent while he processes that. “Wait. You- _you’re_ the person Harry arranged to nurse me?” he nibbles at the edge of the travel mug. “Not gonna lie, I was expecting an outfit, at least. Get all tarted up.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘blackmailed’.” Nick winces around his mouthful of still-very-hot-tea and looks thoroughly unimpressed. Louis can’t say he feels any different.

“Harry _blackmailed_ you into looking after me?”

“Said you were mopey about the fact that no one was fussing over you. Apparently you got proper stroppy when the boys all left without you.” Nick smirks and before Louis can refute that claim, he carries on, “I’m sensing that’s not the case?”

Damn right, that’s not the case. Louis is perfectly fine, perfectly capable of not killing himself and/or burning down his house for a week. The only ill feelings he has towards the rest of his boys being in America is that they’re there _without_ him. He says as much to Nick.

“He _said_ you’d be stroppy.”

“You’ve already said that. Get some better insults.” Louis forgets about his resolution to not dignify stupid comments with answers - something learnt from four and a bit years on Twitter.

Nick polishes off the rest of his tea, and claps his hands together - a really obnoxious habit and one that startles Louis out of the haze he’s taken to falling into, a product of a stuffy head and lots of Panadol.

“Niall _also_ said that I’d better make sure you stay in bed.”

Which… is the ultimate betrayal. Louis expected it from Harry, mother hen that he is, but Niall. The fact that Niall was in on the plan to essentially force Nick into playing nurse is… Quite frankly, it’s a bit insulting.

“Were _all_ the boys involved in this, then? Knock on your door and not leave ‘til you agreed to babysit me?” Louis can’t help if his voice goes a little whiney - he’s sick and he’s a bit pissed off.

Nick’s standing up now, lording both his height and good health over Louis. “Hit the nail on the head there, love. Did they not tell you this morning? Said they’d pop around to let you know.”

Louis assumes he means his lovely five am wake up call. Which would mean… “they went ‘round your house before the show? And woke you up?” Nick nods. “And you agreed? You didn’t swear at them?”

Nick doesn’t like being woken up before five on a weekday - pre-existing, terrible, ungodly wake up calls for _The Breakfast Show_ being the reason. Louis is speaking from experience: one morning (still night time, really) he’d thought of an absolutely hilarious hypothetical question that he thought Nick could use in his show.

Nick’s response to Louis’ admittedly cryptic text had been a concise **fuck off you tossing wanker** and that had been that. That had been the first and last time Louis had texted Nick with anything other than grocery lists for Harry’s neverending movie nights.

“I did not,” Nick looks proud of himself. “I am capable of caring every once in a while.”

Louis rolls his eyes and regrets it, but makes a concerted and successful effort not to wince. “You said you’d been blackmailed.”

“I promised Niall I’d keep you in bed,” Nick kicks gently at Louis’ bare toes until he stands up, “and who can say no to Niall?”

Nick has a point, Louis thinks as he climbs the stairs with Nick following behind and standing on Louis’ duvet every chance he gets. But not enough of one to make him get over the fact that his best mate essentially _hired_ him a carer. Like Louis’s an old man incapable of wiping his own arse.

He’ll spend this week thinking up ways to get back at them, that’s for sure.

\---

Louis has always been told that he’s too suspicious. By his mum, his PR team, the fans; ‘he looks for the bad in others’, ‘he’s always looking for loopholes for when someone inevitably fucks up’, ‘he isn’t as trusting as Harry, or as ready to give people the benefit of the doubt like Liam and Niall.’ And it’s true, he supposes, but he doesn’t think it’s a _bad_ thing, per se.

Everyone is always making it out to be something to work on, something to overcome, like...like it’s a cancer. But it keeps Louis afloat, kept him from being sucked into toxic friendships and shoddy contracts, has kept him well away from any scandal that someone else could create.

All his bad press has been his own fault - filming things he shouldn’t have, saying things he shouldn’t have, acting a certain way around people he shouldn’t have. He’s not an idiot - he knows the fans think he fell right into place with Harry and the other boys, he’s seen the fan theories about him and Harry. But it didn’t work quite like that.

He had slotted in quickly, true. He had made sure he’d been himself from the get go, hadn’t wanted any part of himself to be contrived or false. Even so, there’d been parts of himself he’d held back, things he wasn’t ready to divulge until well into the beginning of the Up All Night tour.

Today, five years on, there are still cards he plays close to his chest, still things that none of the lads know, still things he won’t even whine to his mother about. So it’s really no surprise that he’s curled up close in bed, blankets scrunched up around his head, trying to conserve as much heat as he can because _fuck_ he’s cold, and wondering if Nick has ulterior motives.

He keeps turning over the fact that _surely_ Harry would have the decency to not wake Nick up at ungodly hours of the morning before his alarm to ask him to _look after his ill mate_. He just finds it all a bit questionable and… he hardly _knows_ Nick, is the thing.

Having a bit of a drunk puppy pile with Nick and Harry every once in a while is one thing, but having Nick in his house with the express purpose of _looking after him_ is a bit weird.

It doesn’t change the fact that Louis is curled up in his bed, listening to Nick walk around downstairs, and wondering what on earth he is going to do with an ancient radio DJ when he hears… Nick’s footfalls have quietened down and been replaced with… Yep. That’s most definitely a dog barking.

Louis thinks that Nick is bloody lucky he doesn’t stomp downstairs, guns blazing. Nick should be thanking his lucky stars that Louis is ill and he has his vocals to think about before he starts swearing blue murder at the man. As it is, he completely discards his duvet before he makes his way downstairs as angrily as he can whilst freezing cold and bone tired.

“When has that dog _ever_ been allowed inside this house, Nicholas?” Louis folds his arms and stares down at Nick - long legs propped up on Louis’ coffee table and mutt of a dog resting half on his lap and half on Louis’ couch.

Nick doesn’t so much as look away from where _Great British Bake Off_ is montaging bread baskets when he answers. “Harry always lets me.”

“He…” Louis will murder dear young Harry when he gets back. First this whole ‘treating Louis like an invalid’ and now finding out that when Louis isn’t home, Harry not only invites himself over, but invites Nick and his _dog_ to join. “Would you kindly ask your dog to leave my couch? I just had it dry cleaned.”

Nick smirks, but turns to address the dog. “Pig, would you like to leave Louis’ couch?” Pig - _what a ridiculous name for a dog_ , Louis thinks - just starts wagging her tail even faster.

“Pig? I can’t believe you called your dog Pig.” Louis figures if he can’t win one argument, he can start another. Turns out, being an argumentative little prick comes with it’s draw cards. Pig lifts her head and perks her ears up at Louis’ voice.

He figures he might as well try his luck. “Pig dog, what d’ya say about hopping off my couch? Sit at Grimshaw’s smelly feet instead.” Her tail does one last quick _thud_ against the cushions of Louis’ white - _white!_ \- sofa before she stands up and resettles on the floor, chin resting on Nick’s socked feet.

“Hey!” Nick looks away from the telly to frown down at his dog, thoroughly offended. “Why’d you listen to Tomlinson? You’re s’posed to be my dog.”

Louis just grins, “guess the best man wins, innit?” He picks up the blanket that had been artfully draped over the back of the sofa (all Niall’s doing) and plops down next to Nick. “What’re we watching?”

Nick nudges his elbow against Louis’ and explains that Martha can make an ace tiramisu but that Kate is leaps and bounds ahead of her with her Victorian sponges. That’s one thing Louis likes about Nick - he won’t make you watch a show without knowing every intimate detail of someone’s life.

Being in the eye of the public such as he is, Louis supposes he maybe shouldn’t like it so much, but there’s nothing worse than watching reality TV and not knowing who ranted about which contestant.

As it turns out, there’s a cooking show on every channel for at least the next five and a bit hours. Louis and Nick alternate between _GBBO_ and _Come Dine With Me_ for the majority of three hours - interspersed with Nick getting up to fix them some tea, and to root about in Louis’ cupboard until he finds tinned soup - but towards the end, they give in to Nigella moaning about chocolate.

It’s a great day by Louis’ standards. Sitting about doing nothing, but not the dreary end-of-week type nothing. It’s nice, to not have to worry about writing, or interviews, or how sore his throat still is.

It’s also nice to have Nick here, even though Louis had insisted on not needing anyone, and even though he and Nick are more acquaintances through a mutual friend than anything else, it’s nice to just sit and...occupy the same space as each other.

There’s none of that awkward pressure to make conversation, no awkward silence even though the only times they speak are when a contestant has said something particularly brainless, or Louis wants to bitch about how Nick makes tea.

Louis doesn’t even mind the dog, sort of forgets she’s even there with how well-behaved she is. The complete opposite of Nick then, he muses. Nick with his loud voice, loud clothes, and even louder personality. Louis doesn’t think about the fact that that was _him_ circa 2011, doesn’t like to think about what that means, about the dots it connects.

Instead, he pokes at Nick’s thigh until he lifts it just enough for Louis to wriggle his toes under, and bends forward to rest his head on Nick’s shoulder, close enough to smell the cologne that doesn’t scream so much ‘thirty year old man!’ as it does ‘trying too hard to relive my youth.’ Louis surprises himself when he finds that it only annoys him a little bit.

“Mug a thirteen year old, then?”

Nick tilts his head to look at Louis in confusion. Louis forgets that people aren’t following along in his head, sometimes.

“Your cologne. Did you mug a thirteen year old?” Louis takes an exaggerated sniff of Nick’s neck and only vaguely takes notice of the thatch of chest hair he’s got going on underneath those collarbones. “Smells like something from the locker rooms back at school. Something you’d put on to impress a girl.”

Nick pinches at Louis’ waist and smirks. Louis thinks smirking must be his ‘Thing’, just like Niall’s blond hair. “You impress a lot of girls in your day? Suffocate them with LYNX and then woo them?”

“Summat like that,” he shifts, suddenly and inexplicably awkward. Seventeen year old Louis hadn’t been much of a catch, really. He’d had a few girlfriends, mostly girls he took on a few dates and snogged a bit, really. Nothing ‘serious’. He’d just never… he’d never had the opportunity to get his heartbroken back in highschool, not like Stan. Not like most of his mates, actually.

Part of it was the suspicious side of him, the one his mum and the few girlfriends he’d ever had kept pulling him up on - how he never opened up, how he didn’t give them the emotion that sixteen/seventeen year old girls are looking for.

And part of it was… Well, Louis’s sure that the moment in the back of IT where he’d looked across at Matthew Gordon and realised that he quite fancied snogging him had played a part in why he hadn’t pursued as many girls as other boys in his year.

“Y’ alright, love?” Nick asks, pet name flowing off his tongue in that thoughtless Northern way. Louis’s a right one to comment on it though, given that he’s been calling everyone he’s even remotely close to ‘love’ for the past seven years of his life.

“Yeah, just a bit achy is all,” Louis lies, although his lower back _is_ starting to feel a bit tender.

Nick’s face looks a little funny when he’s concerned, and Louis regrets not thinking of a better lie faster - Nick smells, his old man bones are crushing Louis’ feet, Louis hates the contestant - because he’s being herded off to bed again.

Nick’s a lot cluckier than Louis had originally thought, all this bed and rest and hot water bottles rubbish. The hot water bottles are a nice touch, though.

\---

When Nick wakes Louis up, it’s dark outside.

Louis snuffles awake and tries to surreptitiously wipe the dribble off his cheek while scowling at Nick in what he thinks is an appropriate reaction to being woken so rudely. And he isn’t hyperbolising when he says ‘rudely’. He’d jerked awake to Pig’s ugly face across the pillow from him, and Nick sitting on his feet. For such a beanstalk, he’s surprisingly heavy.

“It’s eight o-fucking-clock, Grimshaw.” Louis squirms around underneath his duvet, searching for a softer place in his pillow.

“I made fucking dinner, Tomlinson.” Nick smirks - Louis’s beginning to think it’s the only expression he’s capable of, with the possible exceptions of annoyed, and overly smiley.

“What? So I can’t make it myself, can I?”

“Thank you, Nick. It was thoughtful of you to make me dinner. What would I do without you?” Nick crosses his arms and lets his dog shed hair all through Louis’ bed.

Louis sits up, duvet drawn tight around his shoulders. “‘S not like I asked you to,” he feels the need to defend himself for some reason.

“No, see that’s why it’s called a _favour_.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, Nicholas.”

“Then don’t act like it, Lewis.”

“Would you just fuck off?” Louis’s mad now, proper riled up, and every kind thought he’d had about Nick earlier in the day is gone - he wishes there’s a way of taking them back.

Nick shakes his head. “Nope. Made enough for two. And I’ve got the show in the morning - can’t be spending my night cooking for myself as well as an ungrateful little prick.”

“Well then,” Louis climbs out of bed as gracefully as he can, not wanting the humiliation of getting caught in his sheets while he’s rowing with Nick. “Best get it over with. I wouldn’t want to add ‘inconsiderate’ to my CV.”

Nick just purses his lips at Louis and strides out of the room, Pig following at his heels. Louis stomps after them, feeling very pissed off and not quite at all sure what started this argument. He thinks it was definitely Nick’s fault. He tells Harry as much after dinner.

“You literally have the _worst ideas in the world,_ Harry!” Louis hisses into his phone. “Why did you think it was a good idea to just ask _Nick Grimshaw_ to come ‘round my house and look after me?” He doesn’t give Harry a chance to answer, “I know I’m a bit poorly but I don’t need looking after and I _certainly don’t_ need Nick and that fucking dog cluttering up my house!”

Harry makes a huffing noise on the other end of the line. “Louis, you need to have patience. And like...you’re not exactly...tolerant? Of things like that. Like…” he pauses to gather his thoughts. “Like you’re a pretty shit patient, if we’re being honest.” There’s a faint chorus of agreement in the background.

“Oh,” Louis is used to this by now, “I’m on speaker am I?.” He raises his voice, “you three are shitheads, too!”

Harry clicks his tongue and Louis sighs. “Why is this only coming up now, Louis?”

“Because I didn’t want to interrupt the promo stuff, did I?”

“No. You don’t care about interrupting,” Harry is the shittiest shithead of all of them. “You’ve been _enjoying_ today, haven’t you? And you feel weird about it, so you’re being a dick.” Harry is a perceptive shithead.

Louis stays silent. Until Nick appears in the doorway and he feels the need to make it well-known that he’s not welcome to be leaning against the doorjamb of Louis’ kitchen like he belongs there.

“Not at all. You aren’t here. Nick is a conceited prick and I don’t need him or anybody to nurse me. And he makes shite soup.” He hangs up, partly because he doesn’t want to deal with Harry’s Voice of Reason, but mostly because it looks cool in films and Nick’s still leaning against his doorframe.

“I make shite soup?” Nick raises his eyebrows, and tilts his head to the side. “Reckon that’s reason enough to tell me off for cluttering up your house and being a conceited prick - I’d call myself names as well, probably - but there’s no reason to bring Pig into it. She’s an innocent party.”

Louis just sets his jaw and stares at Nick, thinking about ways to make it up to Harry. He never did take well to being hung up on.

“Anyway, I thought you said you liked my soup?” Nick is still standing a couple of metres away from Louis, looking more curiously amused than angry.

“Why are you so calm? Why aren’t you yelling at me?” Louis is confused. He’d been an arse to Nick and he’s just standing there, calm as anything.

Nick shrugs. “Do you want me to be? Angry, I mean? Because I could yell, if that’s what you were hoping for?” He steps away from the door and Louis tugs his duvet a little tighter about himself. “Do you always do this?”

“Do what?” Louis had planned for yelling, for slamming doors, and Nick leaving and not coming back, and not giving Louis bedtimes in the middle of the day.

“Test people. Get cross at them and see how they react. Push ‘em away to see if they’ll come back.” When Louis doesn’t say anything, Nick goes on. “‘If you love someone, set ‘em free’, that sort of thing?”

“I don’t love you. Don’t be stupid.” Seems like Harry isn’t the only perceptive one who Louis associates himself with. He really should start getting denser friends - would make being an untrusting bastard much easier.

Nick shakes his head. “‘course not. You’re a straight popstar. But you’ll admit, you loved my soup.” Louis dips his head in a reluctant nod. “Right, then,” Nick rubs his hands together, rings scratching against each other, “if I get Pig a sitter, will you let me come tomorrow? Only, your Sky box has more channels than mine and I’d quite like to know who wins _Come Dine With Me_.”

Louis sighs, “I suppose so. But I get to decide my own naptimes, yeah?”

Nick extends one massive hand to shake Louis’ and that’s that. He collects his bag, slips his boots back on, then he’s out the door with an obnoxious tap to the door frame, and Pig following his footsteps.

~*~

**Niiiiiickkkk???**

That was the text that woke Nick up, jolted him rudely from a dreamless sleep at ten past four in the morning. He fumbles around in his sheets for his phone in case it’s something important - Harry’s back from LA, and no one texts before seven AM unless it’s important.

Of course it’s Harry.

 ** _you drunk? i have to be awake in an hour._** It’s too early to care about Harry’s drunk ramblings and Nick just wants to send him on his way to a glass of water and be done with the whole thing.

**No!**

**My friend’s ill**

Nick’s phone tells him Harry is still typing, probably rethinking and retyping whatever he wants. And it _will_ be him wanting something, because Harry’s lovely and Nick loves him to pieces, but he can tend to be quite selfish sometimes. Not intentionally - Harry wouldn’t like to think about putting someone out - but he slept on his friend’s sofas because he was disenchanted with his own house.

Little things like that.

**I’m going to America tomorrow…**

**With the lads**

**most of ‘em.**

**Louis sick**

***louis’**

Just to be a dick, Nick sends back **_*Louis’s_** and then he wonders what he has to do with it.

He doesn’t have anything to do with Louis, they only see each other when Harry forces them to watch his brainless films with him. Harry can’t be accusing Nick of making Louis ill - Nick’s been the picture of health lately, and he hasn’t seen Louis in over a month.

Luckily for him, Harry answers, along with a cheerful three other notifications. He reads Harry’s last, just to annoy him.

**c u soon grim! :)) - Liam**

**See you soon Nick - Zayn**

**Lads and I comin round . H said u wouldnt mind !! - Niall**

Harry did, did he? Nick supposes he should see what Harry’s said then.

**Can you look after him? Louis doesn’t cope well with feeling ill.**

Nick is going to kill this bastard - waking him up an hour before his alarm and then showing up with his troupe of bandmates on a _weekday morning._ Nick has a radio show to host in a few hours time.

\---

All his indignant arguments don’t do anything in the face of four concerned popstars.

Nick brings up the fact that he has a _job_ to do, but Liam says it’s called _The Breakfast Show_ for a reason. He counters by wondering what will happen if he catches whatever Louis has and then can’t do his job. Nick thinks it’s a valid argument, but Zayn reckons that Nick won’t be close enough to catch anything.

His last resort is mentioning how he and Louis hardly know each other, that without Harry and Stan around, they won’t know what to talk about, it’ll be awkward and horrible, and they’ll walk away from the week properly feuding just like the internet says. Harry successfully shuts that down by threatening to tweet a picture of Nick and Louis’ drunken cuddles on his couch.

“You’re meant to be my mate, Harold.” Nick’s petulant, he can’t help it. He _has_ just been blackmailed into looking after a poorly popstar who he doesn’t talk to about anything except Colin Firth versus Hugh Grant, and Harry’s ridiculous cooking experiments.

“I _am_ your mate. And mates do each other favours,” Harry sweetly points out. “We’ll let you get back to sleep.”

There’s no point. Nick heard his alarm go off ten minutes ago. He says as much but the boys all just smile at him and shrug.

“Have a good show,” Niall says. And then they’re gone, leaving Nick with an address to a house he’s only visited because Harry doesn’t want to have film nights at his since ‘the pipes are haunted’.

Nick needs new friends.

\---

Louis has this _thing_ about beds, it would seem. Nick is under strict orders from Harry to look after Louis and, in his book, looking after someone means issuing them with bedrest and soup. Except Louis keeps wandering around the house with his duvet and no socks on, and he keeps insisting on tea even though Nick’s told him that too much will dehydrate him.

Eventually Nick just gives in and makes Louis as much tea as he wants - he’s a grown man, he can take responsibility for his own dry mouth. The only reason Nick manages to keep Louis in bed for as long as he does is because he mentions Harry, gives Louis an enemy other than Nick himself.

Louis is a dick about Pig - stomps downstairs and demands to know why she’s in the house, and then practically becomes best friends with her. If Nick casts aside how bitter he is that his dog loves Louis more than him, it’s a rather enjoyable afternoon, watching _Bake Off_ with Louis. Nick gets someone to bitch about the contestants with, and he has a small, warm cuddle buddy who doesn’t smell like dog food.

His small, warm cuddle buddy actually smells rather nice for someone who’s ill, and most of the time he actually responds when Nick’s speaking to him. He also does this thing with his nose when he either really likes something or really _dis_ likes something. He’d be terrible at poker.

Truth be told, Nick’s regretting only ever previously cuddling Louis when they’ve been drunk. So many missed opportunities, girls all over the world would kill to be sniffed by Louis Tomlinson.

That’s the only reason Nick’s feeling smug. Honest. It’s like when you know that your best mate really likes this really obscure singer, and you bump into them and take a picture to show it to the friend so it’s like it happened to them. He’s just doing it for the directioners, bless their slightly murderous souls.

Nick’s already planning the tweet in his head: “a certain popstar who thinks he’s 5’9, smells like tea and biscuits, is probably running a fever, and has just stolen my dog”.

Though, on second thoughts, the last time he even alluded to Louis, fourteen year olds told him to eat glass, so better not. Plus, he reckons Louis mightn’t like it, seeing as he genuinely does think he’s tall enough to reach the top shelf.

So anyway, the point is, spending an entire day with Louis isn’t as bad as Nick had expected (except the wee tiny argument they had when Louis phoned Harry to complain about Nick, but they forgave and forgot about that).

\---

“Just take the key, Nick!” Nick doesn’t _want_ the key, is the thing. He’s been standing in Louis’ kitchen for the past ten minutes trying to argue that fact but it doesn’t seem to be getting through.

“Look, I’m sorry I woke you up. I texted ahead an’ all so you’d know. There’s no need to get stroppy on me.” Nick’s desperate, a little bit. Louis is standing - one hand on his hip, the other thrusting his _spare key_ very aggressively in Nick’s direction - looking far too threatening for someone of his stature and state of health.

Louis genuinely looks like he’s about to shank Nick, it’s really too much excitement for ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

“It’s your fault I’m awake this early - coming here straight from the show, and I’d rather not be getting out of bed every morning just to let you in,” Louis is a stubborn little bastard to rival the stubborn bastardry of his bandmates. “I’m not being funny, mate. Take the key and let yourself in. And where’s Pig?”

Nick is powerless to resist Louis’ surprisingly strong grip when he pries his fingers open and deposits the key in Nick’s palm. He’s powerless to resist the small bubble of _something_ in his stomach, and he’s powerless to resist the surge of annoyance that accompanies both Louis’ words and his own reaction to the touch.

“Pig. My dog who you told me to leave at home? That Pig?” Louis nods because apparently they teach ‘faking nonchalance when you know full well you’re being an arse’ at popstar school. “She’s with Collette.”

“Oh.” Louis appears to be satisfied with that answer, because he turns tail and trots out of the room, calling over his shoulder, “be a love and bring me a cuppa?”

Nick honestly doesn’t know why he bothers, he really, really doesn’t. Except… the strange feeling in his gut had only intensified when he’d realised that sweatpants and one of Harry’s jumpers really accentuated Louis’ hips.

Which, no. Nick has rules for a reason, and one of those rules is _never fall for a straight boy_. Louis is most definitely straight. The straightest of the straight. And Nick isn’t _falling_. He just has a healthy appreciation for a nice bum. Cheryl has a nice bum and Nick doesn’t want to stick it in her. The same applies for Louis. The _look but don’t touch_ rule still - _especially_ \- applies to straight boys.

So with that in mind, Nick makes Louis’ tea without thinking about how he should also be taking him a glass of water, he walks in the direction of Louis’ room picking up socks and jumpers and blankets and not thinking about how good Louis’ bare ankles look. He’s careful not to spill the tea, but that’s only because it’s piping hot, and he doesn't particularly want to be spending the rest of his morning cleaning Louis’ carpet.

Louis takes his mug from Nick with a scratchy thank you, and Nick winces to think how bad his throat must hurt. He reminds himself to add some honey to Louis’ next cup, but only because he understands how awful it is to rely on your voice to work...and have your voice not work.

When he’s back downstairs, watching _Bake Off_ and decidedly not thinking about how small Louis had looked under all his blankets, his phone buzzes. **can hear you all the way up here. turn it down.**

Nick smirks despite himself, seems to be all he’s capable of doing around Louis. **_missing me already?_**

Nick’s screen doesn’t have time to fade out before Louis’s replying, **hardly. I miss your dog. not you.**

And, well. Nick’s got Louis’ spare key now. He can reunite Pig and Louis as soon as need be. It wouldn’t do to keep Louis Tomlinson waiting.

Which is why Nick is outside Louis’ house with his dog and her favourite toy at five in the morning.

Once he’d compartmentalised the minor meltdown over the fact that _giving someone a key to your house was a_ relationship _thing,_ he’d realised that he had the key to Louis’ house. Meaning, he had Louis’ permission to use that key whenever he needed. And right now, he needs to let Pig into Louis’ house as quietly as possible, make sure she finds her way to Louis’ bedroom and wakes him up.

Wakes him up _after_ Nick is in the car and driving to work, of course. He doesn’t imagine an ill, rudely awoken Louis is a very happy sight. He saw him yesterday at ten AM, he daren’t imagine him at five past five.

And sure, maybe hiding in a hedge, getting his shoes muddy and with his hair partially stuck in a branch isn’t the most _glamorous_ method of...of what, exactly?

His friends would probably call it some form of highly archaic flirting - the typical ponytail pulling of a schoolyard crush. If Fiona was feeling particularly forgiving of Nick’s multiple flaws, she might call it a bit of friendly banter.

It’s not. Flirting, that is.

Nick just wants to pay Louis back for practically banning Pig, and then saying that he missed her. More than Nick. When Nick was the one making Louis tea and fluffing his pillows and cooking him pasta and… Nick’s beginning to get the impression that he’s being used.

Just a little bit. Probably not entirely on purpose. Louis _is_ a rather prominent public figure, and Nick would like to think that Harry wouldn't be best mates with someone who enjoyed exploiting others for their own personal gain.

Meaning: one of Louis’ hunger bursts had not coincided with an ad break, and Nick had missed Kate’s Baked Alaska.

It’s a matter of luck more than anything else that Nick is babysitting one of the only member of One Direction who _doesn’t_ have paparazzi swarming their home address. If there were people to see Nick’s very undignified stoop-and-run to Louis’ front door, there could have been problems.

If it had been Harry - sweet, grateful Harry, too thankful for his position that he would postpone restraining orders until his life was being physically and mentally affected - Nick would have had _no_ hope of sneaking his dog in unseen.

He can see the headlines now: _Radio 1 DJ Sneaks Into Popstar’s Home; Morning Rendezvous or Jilted Lover?_ God, the press would have a field day if they could see this.

Luckily, Nick completes his mission successfully, even if Pig does give him a reproachful stare before bounding down the hallway in the direction of Louis’ room. Never let it be said that his dog can't hunt down a warm, slow breathing body in a dark house.

\---

Turns out, Nick had picked entirely the wrong morning to mess with Louis.

When he lets himself in after work Louis is curled up on the couch with his phone clutched to his ear, and a packet of crisps tucked between his thighs. He’s got his jaw clenched so tight Nick can see the muscles working beneath the skin, and his eyes look tired in a way that isn’t just to do with him feeling poorly.

In lieu of saying anything and interrupting whoever’s on the other end of the phone, Nick waves the travel mug of tea in Louis’ direction. The acknowledging smile Louis gives him is tight around the edges and shaky in the middle, so Nick leaves the mug on the coffee table, and goes off to find his dog.

He comes hurrying back, though, when a loud crash follows a shout of frustration. Nick’s immediately worried - in his experience, no one throws things across a room after a phone call unless they’ve been broken up with.

Louis isn’t in a position to be broken up with.

Well, Nick assumes he isn’t. Harry had, after all, asked _Nick_ to play nurse to Louis - surely if Louis had a girlfriend Nick would be a bit redundant? But… Nick thinks he remembers something in _The Mirror_ about an ‘amicable break up’ earlier in the year. He’d written it off as complete bollocks, but maybe? Maybe it wasn’t as amicable as the papers had made out.

“Y’alright?” he sticks his head around the doorframe of the lounge room, just in case Louis doesn’t want to be disturbed. He’s still got the phone clutched close to his ear. Nick makes a cursory sweep of the room and concludes that the thump he’d heard was Louis’ slipper hitting a shelf of DVDs.

When he gets no response, he edges further into the room. “Louis? Okay?”

“Hang on a mo’,” Louis tells the person on the phone, “it’s Grimshaw.” He looks up slowly, eyes still pained. “Your dog woke me up.”

It’s a strange thing to lead with, given the fact that he’s clearly in the middle of a serious conversation, something Nick tends to steer well away from.

“She did. I let her in.” Nick’s words aren’t quite as free-flowing as they usually are. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

“I know,” Louis rustles around in his crisp bag - sour cream and chive, by the look of things. “D’you want t’ speak to Harry? Zayn wants to leave.”

He holds the phone out in a juxtaposition to the morning prior. Where he had been all strong lines and bold demands for Nick to take his house key, now he appears meek and defeated - curled up by the sofa arm as he is now.

Nick just fish mouths, completely lost for words. “The US?” he finally manages to ask.

Louis smirks but it lacks the usual trademark bite. “That too, I suppose.” He grabs another handful of crisps. “Nah. The band, innit.”

And it’s horrible, Nick hates himself, but his first thought is Harry. Instead of saying that, asking how Harry’s taking it, because clearly _Louis_ isn’t dealing well, Nick holds out a hand for the phone.

“Haz?” He barely even has time to finish before Harry’s talking.

“It’s not that bad, Grim. I’m fine. I’m fine, promise. Got loads to talk about with the boys and stuff but…. but like, it’s worse for Louis I think. You know? Like, he’s all the way over there when we’re all together.” Nick doesn’t want to think about that - the four bright, bright boys talking about something so serious whilst minus one of their shining stars.

Harry lowers his voice, as if he’s scared of Louis overhearing. “And, like… I know Lou’ has you but it’s not… We have each other like. People who _get_ it...and Zed’s his best mate, y’know?” Nick doesn’t know. “So just...take care of him? Please.”

Nick’s throat is a little tight. He knew this band of ragtag boys from the midlands loved each other, but it’s so, so obvious that that love runs deeper than just being mates who sing together. Nick knows that, _has_ known that for ages, but he’s only now realising how extreme that love is.

He looks up at Louis who looks sadder than Harry sounds, and wets his lips. “Will do, boss. Shall I hand you back?”

Harry makes a humming noise, and Nick passes the phone back to Louis. He makes to sit down at the opposite end of the sofa, but the look Louis gives him is enough to make him rethink, and retire to one of the guest bedroom.

In his time in Louis’ house, he’s learned that there’s at least _one_ guest room that has a TV. And he knows for a _fact_ that Louis’ bathroom is well fitted-out. Nick could go for a bath right about now.

\---

They don’t really talk for the rest of the day. Louis sulks around the house, moping out of one room and into another, and Nick tries to stay out of his way. It works, largely because Louis is an anti-social little shite and only leaves his room when he wants a cuppa.

It’s only when Nick starts contemplating cooking dinner that Louis makes his way downstairs. He’s wearing his duvet and, shockingly, a pair of socks. Nick looks up from the sofa to greet him, make some quip about Sleeping Beauty, but Louis beats him to it.

“You’re used to Chinese, right?” His voice is sharp, almost accusatory, and Nick recognises it all too well.

“Er… yes?”

“D’you like the bamboo shoots?” Louis’s using the same voice Nick does when he wants to avoid something that requires more emotion and opinion than he’s prepared for, wants to cover it all up and reestablish a few walls.

“Pineapple, bamboo, them little corns… I like ‘em all, me.” Nick tries for a normal tone, knows he’d thank his friends for pretending all is well.

“Your voice is all funny.” Evidently he wasn’t pretending well enough.

“My voice is always funny, you said so yourself.” Humour, Nick’s found, is always a good diffuser of a tense situation.

“Yes. Well.” Louis shuffles his feet, like he’s feeling awkward in his own home. Nick stands up, in case it’s another one of Louis’ ‘Things’. Not liking someone sitting while he’s standing. Louis narrows his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Was standing up, wasn’t I?” Nick’s stuck halfway to standing - knees bent awkwardly.

Louis picks at the side of his nail. “Well stop.”

“Stop?”

“Stop.”

“Oh, well this is a perfectly normal conversation.”

Louis frowns at him. “Your voice is still all weird.”

“Your voice isn’t so flash either,” Nick responds. Louis winces and, oh. Nick had forgotten about how that was a bit of a sore subject. He rushes to fix it. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, Louis.”

“Do I?”

“That thing with Showbot wasn’t even me. I told Finchy it were a bad idea,” Nick’s not even lying. Putting a question about which popstar was a worse singer than Grimmy was a terrible idea from the get go. Especially with how close Nick was with the boys of One D.

And besides, Nick’s friends with Harry Styles™. He owns all their records, he’s been to a concert or two, he knows it isn’t autotune, and he _knows_ that Louis carries them. He knows Louis’s voice is the one that makes their harmonies as tight as they are, knows that without Louis they genuinely wouldn’t be doing a press tour of America.

He’s also well aware of the fact that Louis has worked probably the hardest out of all of the boys. Like, don’t get him wrong, they’ve all worked their little butts off to get to the position they’re in, but Nick knows that Louis puts in more hours, spends more time practising his solos, the choruses. His voice isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.

  
Louis sighs and sags into the armchair across from Nick. “I know, I’m sorry. I just…” he buries his face in his hands and Nick hopes he isn’t crying. He doesn’t cope well with people crying on him. “I _miss_ the lads, you know?”

Right. Emotion. “D’ya fancy a drink?”

Louis raises his head slowly, and Nick expects to be fully berated about how ‘this isn’t the situation to get piss-headed, Grim,’ but Louis just quirks one side of his mouth in an impression of a smile, and points to the kitchen.

“Bottom left under the sink.”

Nick forgot this wasn’t one of Harry’s heart-to-hearts. Which are both fewer and filled with surprisingly more Action films than it would appear the Directioners think. Nick says as much to Louis on his way into the kitchen.

“Hate that word.”

“What?”

“‘Directioners.’ Makes ‘em sound like they’ve got no like… like they aren’t sentient or whatever. Liam says it better,” Louis runs a hand down and along his chin. “It’s like we’re controlling them or whatever. Like they’ve not got a choice in the matter and they just consume our media and aren’t... _choosing_ to like it.” He looks pained. “I want them to like it. I think they like it. _I_ like it - what we do. Most of it.”

Nick wonders if alcohol is the best path to be leading Louis down, but he honestly doesn’t have the tools to handle someone’s emotional breakdown while he’s sober. He doesn’t have the tools to handle it whilst drunk either, but at least then he can blame his ineptitude on lack of sobriety.

“Harry says Zayn doesn’t like it. Hasn’t been liking it. Never has liked it?” Louis is still talking and Nick is still in the kitchen, rooting around in Louis’ alcohol cabinet. “Point is: I don't know which one it is because he’s never told me.”

Nick settles on a bottle of vodka which will be warm and a bit not on, but still alcoholic and therefore good enough. He roots around until he finds two drinking glasses, and returns to the living room.

“Harry say how long it’s been in the works for?” Nick hands Louis a tumbler and sloshes a healthy portion of vodka into it. He sits down. “Not really something you announce on a whim.”

“Well, no shit.” Louis takes a delicate sip, and pulls a face. “Sorry.”

Nick doesn’t think Louis has anything to be apologising for. He’s in a shit position, and he’s handling it… not _brilliantly_ , but a hell of a lot better than Nick would. “Do you… I mean, you could call him?”

It’s slow, but Louis looks up at him. “You’re having me on,” he waits for Nick to smile. Not going to happen, considering he’s completely serious. “I’m not about to call him up. What would I say? ‘Hey mate, heard you’re thinking about leaving. Wish you would have told me, but all’s well. I’m just sitting on me sofa wit’ a nightcap’?”

“Worth a shot…”

“Come off it,” Louis fixes him with a scathing stare. “That might work on Harry, but I’m seeing straight through your shite. You, Nicholas Grimshaw, would never ring up Fincham if one of your silly radio clique people phoned you up an’ told you he was leaving.”

“My radio mates are not silly, thank you very much.” For all his shortcomings, Nick’s fiercely loyal to his friends. Louis may _not_ badmouth them, even if he is a little under the weather.

“Neither are my mates. And the whole world seems to think it’s a farce.” Louis’ face crumbles, and Nick leans forward to top up his glass. Everyone jokes about it, but Nick really is no good with tears.

Nevertheless, he drains his drink and shuffles closer to Louis. Louis, in turn, shifts slightly to the left so that their legs are pressed flush together. Nick decidedly ignores the way Louis’ joggers are clinging around his thighs.

“Not everyone. Not your fans.” Nick nudges their elbows together, and Louis gulps down his glass and holds it out for a refill. At this rate, they’re going to be very sloshed in a much shorter amount of time than Nick had reckoned on.

“Nah,” another half a glass downed, “they just think me and Harry are screwing in every dressing room we can get into.”

This is familiar ground for Nick. He’s had many talks with Harry about the public perception of his relationship with Louis. “Not all of ‘em. Like, most of them aren’t too in your face? ‘It’s the minority that’s heard over the masses’, or summat like that…” he doesn’t think it’ll help, but it’s worth a crack. Harry’s always seemed to lap it up.

“‘S’pose, yeah,” Nick is honestly surprised that Louis is going along with whatever it was he’d just spouted. “But now they’re going to have even more of an excuse to like...harass my family because Zayn’s left and there’s a four to one ratio instead of five. ‘S funny.”

Louis is well and truly on his way to being drunk. Nick would like to be there with him, but he supposes he should be the responsible one in this situation. “It’s not really.”

“No, no it is.” Louis juts his chin out a little bit - an attempt at making himself look bigger, Nick assumes. “Like, who ‘m I gunna hide behind now? Wit’ four people actually capable of carrying a solo it weren’t a problem. Now though? ‘S gunna be like 2011 again - th’ lads all pulling me along.”

“Louis.” Nick reprimands, shocked. He supposes he knew Louis’ faith in himself was a little shaky, but… “You’re-”

“‘A valued member of the team’, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I know. Live out of Niall’s suitcase for a half a year, don’t I?” Louis forgoes his cup and just takes the bottle off Nick. Which is how alcohol poisoning happens, so Nick lets him take a few chugs, and then reclaims it, screws the lid on, and announces a tea break.

Louis starts crying.

Nick. Well… “M-mate, you can’t drink a whole bottle on your own. Not healthy, and I promised H I’d take care of you and that.”

“Don’t care ‘bout the… ‘bout the vodka. Si’ back down,” he blinks up at Nick. “Please?” Nick hides the bottle beside the couch just in case Louis makes a grab for it, and settles back down next to Louis. Louis who tips over until his head is nestled in Nick’s neck.

Louis has lovely hair, all feathery and soft and fresh smelling. “Okay, love?” It’s the Northern coming out, Nick swears. Nothing else. It’s normal to call drunk friends-of-friends that you’re nursing ‘love’.

“I just wish he'd told me. He’s had plenty of time. Wish I were with the boys. We could hug it out, or vote,” Louis shoots upwards, nearly braining Nick in the process. “We can outvote him leaving! Nick lemme call the lads! This is the perfec’ idea!”

Nick really, really doesn’t think it is. “I don’t think this is something you can vote on, Louis,” it’s all too serious for him. Nick needs something to lighten the mood. “And, hey! I’m offended. Am I not a good enough hug for you?”

Louis stops and quirks half his mouth in Nick’s direction. “‘f course. ‘Course you are, Grim. The best.” He follows it up with a yawn, and Nick wraps a careful arm around his shoulders.

“Best be getting you off to bed, I think.” He coaxes Louis to his feet, wobbly and uncoordinated drunk that he’s turned into. Unlike the previous two days, Louis goes without a fuss, presses his cheek to Nick’s shoulder and let’s himself be guided.

Louis is very soft when he’s drunk - his walls are lower and he’s got less measures in place to check himself, does things he’d hold himself back from when sober. Like this - cuddling into Nick and not ending it with a slap to the dick, or a nipple twist, or a sharp little shark bite.

Which is how Nick justifies the soft kiss Louis presses to his mouth before he passes out fully clothed under his mountain of blankets. He’s just drunk, and the way his nose had brushed along Nick’s meant nothing.

The flip of Nick’s stomach has nothing to do with anything except the fact that he would be sleeping on Louis’ sofa and waking up early for work the next morning. Louis hates an early wake up call. It’s just nerves, and Louis was just drunk, and it all means absolutely nothing.

Nick doesn’t think about the fact that he doesn’t _have_ to sleep on the sofa, can go back to his own place and not have a crick in his neck the next day. He doesn’t think about the fact that the sound of Louis snoring upstairs isn’t annoying him.

If Louis’ a master at avoiding bed rest, Nick’s a master at avoiding feelings.

~*~

Louis wakes up in the morning with a pounding head and a very annoying situation in his pants. He doesn’t have the energy for a morning wank, he feels like he’s being cooked alive despite having thrown all the covers onto the floor during the night, and the added bonus of a hangover is really doing nothing for his libido.

That being said, his morning wood really is becoming rather uncomfortable, so he resigns himself to a mechanical wank. It’s then that he hears a bark from downstairs, and the night before comes back to him. Suddenly, his erection isn’t a problem any longer.

Mortification is a very effective turn-off - he’ll have to note that down to show Niall and Harry for those _endless_ nights on the tour bus.

What he been _thinking_? Correction: clearly he _hadn’t_ been thinking. Kissing Nick like that - stupid, ridiculous, _idiotic_ boy.

Louis wants absolutely nothing more than to just roll over, tug a pillow over his head, and mourn the loss of his boner since it’s a better alternative to feeling like a complete and utter bellend. But he can hear Pig running about downstairs, and Nick mustn’t be home since it’s a weekday and it’s only…

_Christ, it’s only nine in the morning._

So, having determined the coast clear of any Nicks - _oh, god. Nick hadn’t said anything after Louis forced his drunken self on him. And then...Louis had passed out. He_ hates _himself when he’s drunk_ \- Louis rolls out of bed, and disposes of his pyjama pants.

Now he’s alone in the house he can walk around in only a pair of boxer shorts. Plus, he really is absolutely boiling.

Downstairs, Pig is having an absolute field day tossing a chewed up pig ( _bit morbid, innit?_ ) toy about his kitchen, and Louis spares a few moments to think it was good of Nick to shut her in with a makeshift gate made of his sofa. Then he just get annoyed that he’ll have to move it by himself.

It’s while he’s putting his whole body weight into moving the couch back that he notices the radio is on. It’s been set to...yep. The fucking _Breakfast Show._ Helpfully, Nick’s left a note on top of the stereo: **_Pig gets anxiety if there aren’t people about. Turn it off when you get up._ **

Louis excuses the fact that he turns it up instead with the fact that it’s nice to have some sound in the house that isn’t dog nails on the tiles of his kitchen.

He potters around making himself breakfast - tea, cornflakes, a sneaky hobnob that he knows his mother would be on his back about - until the song finishes and it’s Nick’s voice filling his house.

_“That was James Bay with Hold Back The River. That’s an absolute tune, that one. Right now it’s time for the news with Tina Daheley. Tina!”_

Louis sips pathetically at his tea, and waits for NewsBeat to be over.

 _“For all you listeners just tuning in, I’ve had a_ terrible _night sleep,”_ Wow. Way to make Louis feels shit. _“I was napping on my friend’s sofa and I’ll tell you now - that’s not something I want to repeat. I’m all achy and tired.”_ It’s not like Louis had made Nick sleep on his couch. He could have - should have - just gone home to his own bed.

 _“And then, right, he didn’t have the right cereal in his cupboards so I had to have_ cornflakes _,”_ like it’s the bane of his existence - having to have cornflakes, _“and Pig was proper crazy so I had to shut her in the kitchen so she didn’t do summat mad like tear up the carpets.”_

Louis spares a glance for Pig who appears content to just gnaw at her toy. He wouldn’t call her mad.

 _“But all is well! B’cause I made meself the best cup of tea I’ve had in a long while. Didn’t I Fiona? I was telling you all about it...”_ That’s a small mercy, Louis supposes - the fact that Nick got something good out of the one massive Mistake Louis had made.

That how he spends the next hour - sat pathetically on the uncomfortable sofa Nick keeps banging on about, sipping his tea until _The Breakfast Show_ is over and he jumps to turn off the radio because he doesn’t like the song that’s been queued.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

\---

He’s just about to pick up his phone and call Harry, time difference be damned, when there’s a soft knock on the door. He does a quick run through of all the people it could be, decides his mum wouldn’t be visiting before lunch time, and gets up to answer it.

It’s Nick.

“Why’d you not just use your key?” Louis decides the best course of action is to pretend nothing is out of the ordinary.

Nick’s face is more grimacey than usual when he answers. “Thought it were a bit… it’s weird when you’re...” he seems to just give up halfway through the sentence. “Did Pig behave?”

Louis is not having it. “When I’m what?”

Nick fumbles his words a bit, before, “when you’re home. ‘S rude to use the key if you can just let me in.” So Louis had no reason to worry about Nick bringing up the night before. Stupid, stupid overthinking boy. As if Nick would want to remember.

Louis leaves the door open and returns to the safety of the living room - that is: safe from any stray paparazzi, and safe from Nick’s less-than-perfect quiff which is making Louis’ stomach do strange things.

“You shut her in my kitchen. What’d you think? That she was going to rip up my tiling?” He’s well aware he’s got his hackles up. If Liam were here, Louis would be getting the lecture about how he doesn’t let people in, he’s going to regret it, and ‘Tommo, I know it’s natural for you to be suspicious, but not everyone wants to sell you out.’

He waves a hand at his sofa. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to move that back to where it’s supposed to be?”

Nick shakes his head. “Can’t say I do. Wish I’d been here to see it,” Louis thinks he might almost detect a hint of fondness in Nick’s eyes. “Might’ve gotten me through me morning, seeing you struggle.” So not fond, then.

He glares at Nick. “Why’re you being a prick?” He doesn’t mention the fact that Nick’s morning could have been better if he hadn’t slept on Louis’ sofa because that would mean revealing he’d listened to the show. Which… no.

“Cuz that’s just who I am, Tomlinson. And if you don’t like it, then you won’t be wanting anymore soup, will you?” Nick smirks at Louis and makes a beeline for the kitchen.

Louis follows after him, bare-footed and only just realising that he’s bare-chested. He starts to wish that he’d thought to put a nicer pair of pants on, but he nips that thought in the bud because he doesn’t need to impress Nick, and he certainly doesn’t want to.

“If you’re making some, I wouldn’t say no.” He scratches self-consciously at his stomach, muscle memory making him suck in the what used to be a pooch of tummy that hours of gym time had eventually worked away.

Nick shoos Louis out of the kitchen when he tries to help out - uncharacteristically guilty at sitting about while Nick does things for him. So he’s left on the sofa with his thoughts, and Nigella just a noise in the background.

The thing is, _the thing is_ , Louis is used to seeing the softness of a girl’s figure, and thinking he’d like to hold her. He’s used to looking at a girl’s legs and thinking he’d quite like to rest his hand on the warmth of her thighs. But he’s also noticed the sharp angles of a guy’s back and thought about how they would feel under his palms. He’s seen the strong lines of a boy’s jaw and wanted to put his mouth there.

It had plagued him for years, the knowledge that every other boy in his year had wanted girl after girl after girl, and Louis had thought Matthew Gordon was well fit. Don’t get him wrong, he’d had girlfriends who he’d had the typical sixteen year old fantasies about, but he had the same thoughts about boys.

There had been the awkward Time He Doesn’t Talk About where his stomach had fizzed and twisted itself into knots every time Stan touched him, but - _thank God_ \- that had passed just as quickly as it had come about, and Louis had figured it was just a friend-crush.

To be honest, he hadn’t spent a great deal of time thinking about it, he’d just wanted the feelings _gone_.

Coming out to his mum had been a very spontaneous thing that Louis was in no way prepared for. He’d been Googling things like _‘I like boys as well as girls?’_ and he’d come up with the definition of bisexual. He’d buried that away in a corner of his mind labelled ‘Things I’m Definitely Going To Try To Forget I Know About’, and gone downstairs to dinner.

Dinner, where, over broccoli and cheese sauce, Lottie had made a comment about a program she’d seen about bisexuals, and Louis had… He’s not proud of how he’d reacted, okay?

He’d yelled about how _‘it isn’t a real thing, and it isn’t_ normal _’_ and _‘can’t people just stick to boys loving girls, and leave it at that?’_ His mother had given him a shocked glare, and he had followed up with a whispered, _‘I think I like boys.’_

When he’d come out to Stan, just before leaving to X-Factor, it had gone miles better. Louis had been prepared, he’d had a whole speech for when Stan would inevitably ask if that meant he’d be down for a threesome. But the question had never come.

Stan had nodded, and hugged him, and then complained about having to do even more to be a good wingman in the future. Louis had cried on his shoulder a little bit, and then Stan had made him promise to find a good boyfriend when he was off trying to be a star.

And, right, so the fans were a little bit correct. Louis had had a thing for Harry - just a crush through proximity, really - and Harry had liked boys too, so it had culminated in a very awkward snog in their X-Factor bunks. They’d laughed it off, agreed not to let it come between them, and continued on with their lives.

Louis had found Eleanor and with her he’d been the happiest he’d ever been in any relationship, but the pressure of him travelling all the time had started to hurt the both of them, so they'd quietly broken it off.

It was mutual, and they still loved each other, just in a less intense way, and it certainly hadn’t been the shit-storm that the media had made it out to be. The _actual_ shit storm of Louis’ love life had come after Eleanor, after Louis had moved on and started discussions with their PR team about the logistics of coming out.

Nigella is moaning about a chocolate zucchini cake, and Louis is working himself into a full body panic-memory when Nick materialises somewhere to the left of him.

“It’s a bit hot still, but here you go.”

Louis swears and jumps about a foot off the couch at his voice. There’s a brief moment where he’s paranoid that Nick _knows_ what he’s been thinking about and he’s _this_ close to throwing a tantrum and ordering Nick to leave on the off chance that he ever figures it out and tells the media, but the soup is steaming and it smells incredible.

“You wanna try less of the sneaking up?” Louis snarks up at him, “it’s so hard to find good help these days and I wouldn’t want to have to fire you.”

Nick raises an infuriating eyebrow. “Fire me? I haven’t seen a paycheck from you in my entire life.”

“Because you hardly qualify as good help, and Harry hired you. Not me,” Louis feels compelled to add - making a stern sidenote to himself about the reason he’s going to prolong the whole ‘coming out’ thing.

“I’ve nothing to worry about then, have I?” Nick hands Louis the bowl and sits down next to him, closer than necessary and taking up more than his fair share of room. “Harry’ll never fire me.”

“Harry does my bidding.”

“And here I was thinking he had a mind of his own,” Nick is quiet for a moment, and then smirks. “Guess the press is right - you boybanders really don’t know how to think for yourselves, if you’ve got a dictator in your midst.”

Louis doesn’t know how to respond to that, the good natured teasing that no one outside of Stan, the lads, and his family are brave enough to dish out. He sips at his soup instead, and peeks over at where Nick’s chest hair is peeking out the top of his shirt.

“Could you at least dress decently?”

Nick’s confused face is unfairly pretty. Even unfairly pretty people like Harry and Zayn have ugly confused faces. Louis only notices slightly, as a passing observation. “Come again?”

“I am being bombarded by chest hair and I am trying to _eat_.” Louis gestures with his spoon and hopes to god that nothing goes flying off. “Could you put it away please?”

Nick peers down at his chest, and Louis pretends that it doesn’t suddenly become harder to swallow his soup when Nick pulls at the collar of his shirt and exposes even more of his chest. “Didn’t realise you were so easily put off.”

Louis can’t help but read more into that than he should. “When there’s food involved.”

“Nah, see I reckon you’re just jealous that between the five of you, you can’t muster up enough hair to match me.”

“You realise that doesn’t insult me? Harry couldn’t grow a chest hair if he _tired_. I mean, I’ve seen _women_ with more facial hair than him,” Louis takes another sip and forgets it’s a bad idea to talk with a mouth full of liquid. “You’re _dreaming_ if you want to auction off any of his.”

Nick looks vaguely revolted. “People actually do that?”

“Oh yeah,” Louis nods earnestly. “There was this thing a while back where some fans wanted to pay Liam to shave off his body hair and post it to them.” He’ll be honest: even though it _had_ been a bit stomach turning, it had been _the best_ laugh he’d had in ages - chasing Liam about with a razor and a ziplock bag.

“Which brings me back,” he says, “to _your_ hair. Because clearly you haven’t seen Liam and Niall lately. Between us all we could _easily_ beat you.” He gives Nick what he hopes is a menacing glare but probably falls embarrassingly short since his exposed chest is really rather distracting. “Even easier if you don’t cover up right now, because Lottie left some tweezers in me bathroom…”

Nick bursts out laughing, the same horrible, wheezing cackle that Louis had thought was just for radio. He puts a jumper on, nevertheless.

Louis isn’t disappointed. He isn’t.

\---

When Louis wakes up on Friday morning he is _ready_. He’s prepared for another day spent in infuriatingly close quarters with Nick, and he will actually be wearing proper clothes when he shows up. When Nick shows up is actually at two o’clock in the afternoon, Louis had given up on him ever arriving and is dressed only in a pair of boxers. Again.

“Do you ever wear clothes or is it a weird boy band thing?” Nick wanders into his living room, casual as anything. Louis concentrates very hard on not jumping out of his skin since he had _thought_ he was home alone.

“It’s an ‘I’m ill and I’ll wear whatever the fuck I want’ thing,” he says.

Nick drops his shoulder bag to the floor next to the TV and falls onto the couch next to Louis. “Overheating?”

He sounds surprisingly sincere, so Louis’ answering, “yes,” isn’t as snarky as it could have been.

Nick lets the team down though by pointing to the duvet settled across Louis’ feet and saying, “you’re just carting that around with you for a laugh, then?”

Louis doesn’t see what harm a duvet does. It’s certainly something to hide his state of undress behind should he feel the need. Which...he does, but it’d be too obvious to cover up now. “‘S in case I get cold. The lads would know I have poor heat regulation.”

Nick looks genuinely offended. “Well, I’m sorry that I’m not a popstar. Guess you’ll just have t’ put up with me for the time being. Be out of your hair in a few days.” Which doesn’t really sound like an appealing possibility, now that it’s staring Louis right in the face.

“Nah, you’re alright.” There’s a weird tightness sitting high in his throat. “Gonna have t’ actually text me when you’re planning on being late. Else I won’t know when to take me clothes off,” he aims for light and teasing but just to make sure he’s not misunderstood, “ya know. Since you complain about it so much.”

“I had meetings. Surely you know about those?” NIck’s face is doing a strange thing. “And I only complain about things I like. _The lads would know that_.”

Louis chooses to ignore everything. “‘The lads.’ What lads? Your entire radio clique is made up of women and camp straight men.”

Nick’s grin is bright and sudden. “Lads, lasses. Tomahto, tomayto. Louis, prick face.”

Louis kicks him off the sofa.

\---

In the first few months of 2014 Louis had begun discussions with his PR team about coming out. They had, on the whole, been largely supportive, as had his management, although they’d advised him not to start seeing anyone publically for a while.

He wasn’t planning on it, either. He wasn’t ready for any relationship, much less one the public had access to, for a long while yet.

Nevertheless, after Eleanor he had meet the occasional guy who he’d had to ask his lawyers to draw up Nondisclosure Agreements up for. For the most part, a decent lay and a legal threat seemed to do the job.

Until late May when he’d been in a club with Stan and a few of his friends from home, and picked up a guy. In a bathroom. _Not_ something he’d ever thought would happen to him, and not something he wants to repeat.

They hadn’t done much, him and the nameless stranger, just hurried, messy handies in one of the cleaner toilet stalls. Louis had wiped his hand off on some toilet roll, thanked the guy, and they’d parted ways rather amicably.

Two days later, there was a letter in his mail box threatening to go to the press (to _The Mirror_ , of all places) if Louis didn’t pay up. When the lawyers asked, he’d said he hadn’t thought the guy even knew who he was; hadn’t seemed the sort to even give One Direction a passing thought. He was wrong, clearly.

His team had gotten on top of it immediately - signing an NDA and then not abiding by it carried a fair whack of legal fees, and while the guy was smarmy enough to threaten Louis, he wasn’t smart enough to actually read a contract.

Needless to say, after that, Louis hasn’t been with another guy. It’s not worth it.

\---

Nick arrives at ten to eleven, just like he’d said he would. “You look a little less like shit.”

“Thanks,” Louis scoffs.

“Not at all, it was a very easy thing for me to say.”

“I’m sure it was.” Louis smiles despite himself, and takes all of Nick in - resting his shoulder against the door to the kitchen and wearing the most hideous leopard print coat.

His hair is less elevated than usual and Louis thinks he likes it, takes a strange satisfaction in the way it’s flopping about near his forehead rather than leagues above his eyebrows. It makes him look realer, more like someone touchable… he’s softer, Louis notices.

“So!” He rubs his hands together in a way that the lads say makes him look like a dad at a football game. “What’s the plan?”

Nick peels himself off the wall. “Well, I was thinking we would rent some motorbikes and go grab some icecream.” Louis stares at him. “No, of course not. You’re still sick and we aren’t Harry Styles,” his smile is getting steadily wider and Louis is beginning to worry. “We’ll just watch a film.”

Honestly, Louis is disappointed. “What? Again? Nah. No, no way. We’ll break out the ol’ Fifa.” At Nick’s pained groan Louis grabs two fistfulls of Nick’s terrible coat and hauls him into the lounge.

“It’s my house, my rules. We are playing Fifa whether you like it or not,” he pauses for a moment when Nick looks like he’s about to get up and leave, take Pig along with him like the disgruntled child of a messy divorce. “And I’m ill.”

“Oh throw him a pity party!” Nick announces to the room, causing Pig to startle from where she’s lying in front of the TV.

Louis just smiles to himself, privately wishing he’d thought to force Nick into this much earlier.

\---

“No, you put the sugar in before the food colouring.”

Louis stirs his sugar frantically, trying to prove Nick wrong about the importance of following a recipe, and wonders how the hell it came to this - stepping on each others toes, talking over each other, and definitely not making macaroons correctly.

It’s all Nick’s fault, really. He was utterly terrible at Fifa. Like, Louis hadn’t expected him to be good, but he hadn’t thought he’d be quite as bad as he was.

So after Louis had beaten Liam’s top score, and Nick had thrown the controller at Louis’ knee, Louis had given in and suggested they just watch a film after all. This time it had been Nick who had disagreed, and insisted on searching up old _Bake Off_ recipes.

Cooking was never, and never will be, Louis’ forte. Contrary to popular belief, he can actually make food, he just isn’t incredibly skilled at it. Which is why he doesn’t do it nearly as often as he should - if he isn’t immediately good at something, he tends to lose interest.

His mum says it’s something about not wanting to admit weakness, that he has to consistently be besting everyone else at everything. He’d never admit it aloud, but he kind of agrees with her.

One good thing about not being a natural in the kitchen is that there isn’t much room for thinking about anything other than the matter at hand. Louis could use a break from his thoughts today, especially with the way Nick’s brushing up against his side every time either of them moves.

The thing is, even though Louis keeps reminding himself that Nick is off limits, and _‘Harry’s friend so it would be weird’_ , and very much out of the closet while Louis is still very much not, he can’t ignore the fact that Nick smells amazing.

He can’t ignore the fact that every time Nick so much as rubs his elbow against him, Louis’ stomach turns itself back to front. He can’t ignore the fact that Nick is everything Louis has ever found attractive in a guy - tall, funny, equal parts snarky and sweet, and with an amazing jaw line to boot.

He can’t ignore it, but he can damn well try to force it down by failing to follow a recipe that appears to have been directly translated from Greek.

“Alright popstar?”

Louis startles at the sound of Nick’s voice so close to his ear. The older man has his chin hovering just over Louis’ shoulder and is peering attentively down at him.

“Course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Nick draws away and shakes his head. “No reason. Just… off in your own world for a bit.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Louis snips, “better than here, anyhow. You actually cover your body hair up there.”

“Oh, so I exist in your world then, do I?” If Louis didn’t know any better, he’d think the look on Nick’s face is hope. But, no. This is just banter, and they’ve both forgotten about the kiss.

“Mhm,” he replies. “And you’re just as old and annoying there as you are in this one.”

Nick tenses up, and oops. He forgot he isn’t meant to mention Nick’s age. He makes up for it by launching himself at Nick and trying to grab a fistful of his chest hair, threatening to pull it out if he doesn’t cover up, ‘ _we’re in a kitchen for god’s sake!’_

\---

By the time that it’s just past seven at night, they’ve managed to turn out two batches of macaroons, one batch of mini victoria sponges, half a batch of red velvet biscuits (a terrible idea Louis takes full credit for), and three lots of classic banana chocolate chip muffins between them.

Although nothing has turned out quite the way it should have, Louis is proud of their efforts, proposing that they celebrate by watching something _other_ than the Food Network, and have a drink. They eventually agree on an omnibus of _Location, Location, Location_ , and half of Louis’ liquor cabinet.

“Didn’t have you pegged for a bourbon drinker,” Nick says, voice close to Louis’ ear and breath smelling of the sponges they’re gorging themselves on. It’s oddly comforting.

“It’s mainly for when the lads come over. Stan’ll drink anything you put in front of him, and once you get Leemo past a certain point, it’s game on.” He turns his head just the slightest bit and blows a puff of air at Nick’s cheek. “I’m a beer man meself.”

Nick wiggles his eyebrows and Louis becomes startlingly aware of how close their noses are. He pulls back under the pretense of grabbing his first beer. “Forever perpetuating the ‘lads’ stereotype, then.”

“What’s wrong with enjoying a beer?” Louis feels oddly offended, though he’s not sure why.

He didn’t laugh at Nick’s penchant for unfairly expensive wine that tastes like wood, so he reckons it’s only fair that Nick could at least pretend to tolerate the fact that Louis likes beer. Still, it doesn’t explain why he feels the need to have Nick’s _approval_.

“Nothing at all. Just… not really something for a special occasion, is it?”

“Mmn,” Louis makes a sarcastically approving noise high in the back of his throat. “So this is a special occasion, is it? Living Channel, and a stock-pile of badly baked goods?”

Nick screws up his face. “Yeah, now you mention it, I’d rather be in the States getting asked about who I’m screwing.”

Louis gasps, half mock offended and half genuinely hurt. “Yeah, right, I see your point. You’re just jealous you haven’t seen four fifths of One Direction naked.” Nick looks as though he’s actually already formulated a response, but before he can get it out, Louis’ phone rings. “Sorry, I- I’d better get that.”

It’s Zayn.

“Hi, bro. You alright?” He sounds perfectly unaffected and Louis could actually throttle him.

“When were you planning on telling me?”

Zayn exhales audibly. “I wanted to wait to tell you in person…”

“But you told the rest of the lads first. Why? Because...because I wasn’t there and I messed up your plan? Because you feel like you can’t talk to me about it? Because you thought, what? That I’d pressure you into staying? That’s it, isn’t it? You didn’t want me to get mad so you told the others before me so you’d have _back up_.” Louis’ voice has gotten increasingly more aggressive, and he sees Nick shuffle closer to the opposite end of the couch.

On the other end of the phone, Zayn is silent. Louis takes it as permission to continue. “Because, I may be a _prick_ sometimes, Zayn. I know I am an arsehole about most things, but I wouldn’t have been about this. You know how much I have put into this band - how much we all have - and I may get a little intense about it at times, but you know what?”

He pauses to take a fortifying swig of beer. “We come before all that, like we said right at the beginning, remember? We said that if this all got too intense, too crazy and started to not be what we wanted anymore, we’d stop-”

“I don’t want it to stop.” Zayn interrupts and Louis lets confusion fuel his annoyance.

“You literally called a band meeting and said you want it to stop.”

“I said _I_ wanted to stop-”

“I _know_.”

Louis has seriously had it up to his ears with Zayn’s cryptic shit. “Then what do you _mean_ , you don’t want it to stop?”

“I don’t want the _band_ to stop!” Zayn’s finally raised his voice to match Louis’.

“Oh pull your head out of your arse, Zayn.” He’s actually vibrating he’s so pissed off. “We aren’t going to _stop_ the band. That was part of the agreement - unless all of us decide that it’s over, we keep going. Even if it’s just one of us onstage with a one man band. ‘ _This is not the end of One Direction._ ’ Do you remember that?”

Zayn is quiet for a long, tense moment. Then, “I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

Louis has something stuck in his throat. “I… Disapoi- I’m not your mother, Zayn. I’m not disappointed in you. I’m like...I guess I’m pleased? Well, not pleased but like… good for you, yeah? I just wish you’d told me. We’re best mates. Bus 1 an’ all that.”

“I’m sorry, Louis.” Zayn’s quietened down, sounds tired in a way that he only ever does when he’s been working himself too hard.

“I know you are. Go to sleep.” He stays on the line long enough to hear a quiet breath of relief from Zayn, and then hangs up before he can say any more. Nick’s looking at him in concern. “We’ll patch things up when he’s actually back in the country. Now, can we just get drunk please?”

\---

And get drunk they do.

Nick takes a while to warm up to the idea (Louis tries very hard not to think about the fact that the _last_ time they drunk together, he kissed Nick), but after some prodding from Louis, he’s pretty much matching him sip for sip.

With every mouthful of wine (he moved on from beer in a bid to get Nick drinking), Nick gets more and more fascinating. His hair is about four different shades, his eyes aren’t as green as people say they are, more of a murky brown than anything, he takes up so much space on the couch, but Louis doesn’t really mind.

The alcohol seems to be enhancing everything good about Nick, forcing Louis to notice it. Either that, or it’s giving Louis the confidence to appreciate Nick in ways he’d been trying to avoid.

“Nick?” Louis scoots closer to the older man, narrowly avoiding spilling half a glass of red wine all over the carpet.

“Mmn?” Nick’s eyes are closed, so Louis takes that as a challenge.

“Have you really snogged everyone at the BBC?”

“The BBC? No,” Nick’s eyes are still closed. “Radio One? Mostly.”

“Oh.” Louis takes a moment to let his drunk brain mull over what that means. “Have you kissed Harry, then?”

“Yeah.” Nick sounds entirely unaffected by this, and Louis is offended. Snogging Harry is the dream of the entire British populus. Nick could at least sound happy about it, instead he’s got an air of cool about him - as if it’s somehow his privilege to kiss Louis’ best mate.

“Me too.”

 _That_ gets Nick attention. “You what?”

“I’ve snogged Harry.” Nick is silent for a long moment, and just as Louis thinks he’s about to say something...he shakes his head and remains quiet. Which just won’t do. He puts his glass on the floor. “Why’ve you not kissed me.”

“I- I… You-”

It’s to shut Nick up more than anything else when Louis flings himself at him. He seals their mouths together and just _clings_ , gets a good grip on Nick’s shoulders until Nick is responding, kissing back and pressing his tongue against the seam of Louis’ lips. He still seems a bit tense though, so Louis pulls back.

He can feel that he’s flushed, a sharp, burning red right down his cheekbones, so he hides his face in Nick’s chest, nuzzles into the hair he finds there. He presses soft kisses to Nick’s clavicles, and barely suppress his giggles when Nick reaches down to rub soft circles behind his ears.

“Wanna kiss you. Wanna beat Harry.”

“Beat Harry?” Nick’s hands migrate from stroking Louis’ ears, to pushing at his shoulders. “I kiss all my mates, Popstar.”

“I’n’t that your name fo’ Haz?”

“‘S my name for all you singer types, innit. ‘ve got to have something to hold over you all.” The concern is gone from Nick’s eyes, so Louis takes it as permission to kiss him again, to take his face in his hands and lick into his mouth. Nick opens his mouth for Louis easily this time, makes a soft sound of contentment high in his throat.

When Nick falls backwards on the couch, Louis goes with him easily. He likes the feeling of someone else's stubble against his face - likes not being the only one to give the person he’s kissing beard burn. It’s nice, to be held and not be the one doing the holding, to feel a hard body under his - someone not as yielding as a girl, as Eleanor.

He pulls away to press biting kisses into Nick’s jaw line, always gets a little more possessive when he’s drunk, teeth nipping and fingers pressing half-moons into Nick’s hips where his shirt has ridden up.

“My room?”

\---

Nick’s gone in the morning.

Louis’ head hurts, and his phone is slowly buzzing itself off his bedside table.

~*~

Nick is an idiot. It’s that simple. He has rules for a reason. He had it very straight in his head - Louis had kissed him that first time because he was sloshed, he was feeling poorly, and every poorly drunk person in the world who’s just found out that their bandmate is leaving would probably kiss the first person within arm’s reach.

It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean anything, and it still doesn’t mean anything, and there was no reason for Nick to kiss Louis again. No excuse for letting himself kiss him, and no excuse for later carrying Louis upstairs and shagging him.

Regardless of the fact that Louis was _straight_ , he was also _drunk_ , and _sick_ , and there were _rules_ against having sex with drunk, poorly, straight boys. Not Nick’s rules, even. Proper _legal_ rules.

So when Nick had woken up (why he’d let himself _go to sleep_ is beyond him) in Louis’ bed with a very naked boy asleep next to him, he’d slipped out of bed and gathered his things as quietly as he could before sneaking out of the house. He’d left the key Louis had given him on the bench, figuring that after Nick had done what he’d done, the younger man wouldn’t want anything to do with him.

He goes to the sofa when he lets himself into his own flat, and belatedly notices that Louis’ couch is leagues comfier than this bag of bones. Quite similar to Nick himself. He leaves Pig to run off and reunite with her stuffed pig (a gift from Henry), and flicks through the channels until he finds Nigella.

It’s much better watching it when Louis’s there to make overtly sexual noises along with what’s happening on screen. Nick doesn’t think about it.

\---

The thing is, as much as people joke about it (and he knows that the population of people who ship him and Harry together do), he really _does_ have so called commitment issues. As much as everyone tries to convince him otherwise, Aimee and Ian sitting him down and not-so-subtly letting him know how much they’re _loving_ their relationship, he can’t see himself in one.

Objectively, he can. He can see why people do committed relationships, can see the appeal of loving someone and knowing you’re loved back. Except...how do you know? How _do_ people know that their significant other really does love them, that their feelings are reciprocated?

That’s Nick’s ‘commitment issue’. He _wants_ to commit to someone, he’s just scared of the idea of putting such a large portion of himself in someone else’s hands. It’s why he’s got such a string of models he’s bedded, why so many men have spent a night between his sheets.

Casual sex is so much safer than a relationship - his heart isn’t invested, only his dick, and if his emotions ever get confused about it he can call the whole thing off and be over it after a bottle of wine and a night in with the girls.

There’s also the fact that Nick knows he’s flighty, he’s said as much on live radio - _“I get really, really into things and then I’m just over it. I do it with food, with people I fancy… I’m all or nothing.”_

Whenever he _does_ find someone he could harbour more than a passing desire for a relationship with, he convinces himself he would only let them down in the long run.

He’d have a few months with them, and then the novelty would wear off, his feelings would fade, and he’d be known colloquially as ‘Nick The Bastard’.

He has to remind himself that there’s no point thinking about how soft the skin of Louis’ thighs is, how well he kisses, how magical it felt to be _inside_ him, because Louis is _straight_. Last night was one massive mistake - Louis was sloshed, Nick was drunk, and now Louis probably hates him. He certainly hasn’t text him to say anything on the contrary.

Someone who _does_ call him is Harry. Nick ignores him.

\---

Harry doesn’t give up. After the tenth time that his phone lights up, he gives in and answers it - the roaming fees are too steep to waste them on a canned answer phone message.

“What do you think you’re doing, Nicholas Grimshaw?”

“Hello to you too, Henry Stars.”

“Not the time, Grim,” Harry’s voice is tired in a way it only is after days on end of press meets, and he sounds so fed up that Nick decides not to press it. “I called Louis.”

Getting right into it, then. This is why Nick hadn’t wanted to pick up the phone. “Shit.”

“Yeah ‘shit’, Nick. God, what were you _thinking_?” Harry’s frazzled is voice is not something Nick makes it a habit to cause. It’s a bit scary actually, because it usually leads to Harry getting mad and yelling and throwing pillows across the room.

Nick is at a complete loss for words, because he _knew_ it was a bad idea. He had known and yet he’d still done it anyway. He had slept with a straight boy who was seven years younger than him, and friends with his best mate.

“I know. I _know_ , Hazza. I’m sorry,” he sags back into the sofa from where he’d been leaning forwards with his elbows propped on his knees. “Like just...look after him yeah? You flying home tonight?”

“We’ll be dropping by to check in on him tomorrow morning. So you’d better be at home b’cause I’ll be ‘round to yours after.” Harry’s voice has lost the majority of it’s sinister quality, but there’s still a threat in his tone. Nick says his goodbyes quickly and then texts Fiona, inquiring after what to do when one has slept with a straight boy.

Her reply, **straight boy probs isnt so straight methinks** , is the absolute opposite of helpful. Louis is clearly straight.

\---

Despite her less than helpful texts, Fiona shows up at Nick’s door about forty minutes later, Aimee and Pixe in tow. They sit him down on his sofa, ply him with alcohol, and wring out of him the fact that the straight boy he slept with is Louis.

Needless to say, they’re less than impressed he hadn’t even told them he was looking after Louis, and Aimee seems about two seconds away from tearing his hair out when he tells them he left before Louis had even woken up.

Much like Fiona’s texts, they all seem absolutely convinced that Louis _isn’t_ straight.

“I spent the past six days with him. Believe me, he’s straight.”

The girls still look sceptical.

“Oh, so he told you this, did he?” Aimee drums her fingers against the arm of the sofa.

“Well- No. But he didn’t have to.”

Fiona raises her eyebrows at him. “Why not? Did he have a ton of girls over?”

“No!” Nick sounds altogether too defensive. “He’s ill.”

“Then what? Did he express his disgust at your lifestyle?” Pixie is enjoying this far too much.

“No!” Just the thought of that makes Nick’s chest feel tight. “He had a girlfriend.”

“ _Had_?”

“Look, Aimes, can we just stop talking about this? He’s not into blokes, I took advantage of him, and now we’re going to forget about it.”

Talk turns to Henry’s apparent new squeeze. Whom Nick knows nothing about. “S b’cause you’ve been shacked up with a One Directioner,” Fiona assures him, and Nick’s stomach pangs when he remembers Louis’ distaste for the word.

He remembers the way Louis had smelled sat beside him on the sofa, complaining about _Bake Off_ contestants, remembers his sharp smile and the way his teeth had felt against his skin. He remembers the softness of Louis’ thighs, the comparable roughness of his hands, and the exact sound of his laugh.

Nick’s throat feels tight when he thinks about Louis waking up alone and upset, about him having no one to look after him the way the girls are looking after Nick. His stomach twists itself out of shape when he remembers the feel of Louis’ stubble against his skin, and his chest just feels wrong.

Shit. Nick thinks he might properly fancy Louis.

\---

Monday brings three out of five of One Direction to Nick’s door. Ever since he got off work at twelve o’clock Nick has been waiting for a text from Harry, letting him know he’s on his way. He gets no such thing.

Instead, he opens his door to the furious faces of Harry and two of his bandmates.

“What are Liam Payne and Niall Horan doing on my doorstep?” Nick tilts his chin in Harry’s direction, hoping to convey his dismay, annoyance, and confusion with just one wide-eyed glare.

“Why don’t you let us in and you might find out.” America has _changed_ Harry. Nick says as much. He’s met with a sharp glare from Harry, and Niall’s sad, disappointed eyes. He isn’t sure what he’s done to disappoint someone he’s barely spoken two words to in his life, but he’s willing to place bets on it being about Louis.

There are no secrets within One Direction.

So he lets the three men make themselves comfortable on his sofa while he clatters about in the kitchen making them all tea. He does a mental headcount and only then does he realise that Zayn’s missing. He wonders if the rest of them are as upset with Zayn as Louis is.

“Where’s Zayn at?” he questions when he enters the lounge, two cups precariously balanced in each hand.

“With Louis,” Harry sounds dangerous, more so than he had on the phone the previous day. “They’re working things out.” It feels like the bloody Spanish Inquisition, standing awkwardly in front of his couch and being stared down by three children.

That’s good, that’s a good thing. “And you’re sure Louis’s alright with just Zayn being there?”

Liam is frowning at Nick, not even bothering to disguise it anymore. “What are you? Louis’ spokesperson? Pretty sure that last time we checked, we knew Louis a bit better than you.”

And alright, Nick supposes he has a point, but… “But you weren’t there when he was proper sobbing b’cause Zayn hadn’t told him.”

Harry bites at his lip, aggressively pulling at the skin, jaw taut. Niall stares Nick down, mouth one hard line. “We were t’ere when he was sobbing b’cause you left him in bed like last night’s piece of ass.”

Which _oww_ , okay. Harsh.

“I’m sorry, alright? I just thought it’d be better than staying and having him kick me out,” Nick tries to explain himself, but these boys don’t look like they care to listen. “How many ‘f you have wanted a one night stand to wake up in your bed.”

Harry’s eyes bug out, and Liam’s eyebrows are doing something strange. “You-” Harry starts, “you’re serious.”

The rest of the boys look at him with equally baffled expressions, and Nick feels like he’s missed out on something critical. “Erm.. yeah? Should I not be or summat?”

Liam talks to him like he’s a bit slow, “you genuinely think it was just…” but since he doesn’t actually finish his sentence, Nick thinks he’s a fine one to be judgy.

Niall ends up being the one to clear the air. “See, I told you Haz! Nick doesn’t know Louis’s not straight.”

Which...what? _What_? Louis is so straight, he’s the straightest of the straight and Nick doesn’t _understand_. What was Harry’s call about? Why are three members of One Direction sat in his living room if Louis didn’t hate him for taking advantage of him?

“What, you think Louis would have even kissed you if he didn’t like boys?” Some of Nick’s confusion must have shown on his face, because Harry’s raising his eyebrows at him.

“I thought you rang me up to tell me off for sleeping with him when he was drunk and straight.” Nick feels so, so out of the loop. It’s not a feeling he enjoys.

“Well I am a little pissed at you for sleeping with him while he was drunk, but he told me you were pretty out of it too, so it’s not as bad I guess,” Harry bites at his lip, “but no. I was telling you off for snogging him, and sleeping with him, and then leaving in the morning. Like Niall said.”

“Why would Louis care, though?”

“Because he _fancies_ you, you absolute bellend!”

Nick mulls over the thought of crawling into bed for the rest of the month, of doing the show from home and not showing his face until this whole thing has blown over. He’d had rules: _don’t fall for straight boys_ , and he’d failed and now...now it appears that the straight boy has fallen for _him_ , and he isn’t prepared at all.

~*~

Talking to Zayn face to face goes a lot better than Louis had expected.

Considering how absolutely shit he already feels because of Nick ( _“he’s a bastard. I’m so sorry, Louis”_ \- Harry) he had been expecting himself to run his mouth and say things he didn’t mean. He’d expected himself to force back angry tears, build himself into a hurricane of frustration and confusion, and annex Zayn from his life for a good three weeks or so.

On the contrary, as soon as Zayn had walked into Louis’ bedroom where Louis had been busy trying not to cry, Louis’ eyes had overflowed and he’d made grabby hands for his best mate. Zayn smelt like smoke and aftershave and he gave the best hugs. Louis had missed his hugs, he’d missed smelling something that wasn’t Nick.

As soon as Harry has stormed out the door to rip Nick a new one with Niall and Liam in tow, Louis pulls Zayn down onto the bed so that their heads are under the covers.

It took him back to the X-Factor days, the nights when none of them could sleep through the uncertainty and Zayn had crawled into Louis’ bed and they’d held whispered conversations until they both fell asleep.

“I’m sorry I said you had your head up your arse,” Louis mutters, cuddles into Zayn’s chest and closes his eyes, feels the dampness of his eyelashes against his cheeks.

Zayn shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it. I should have told you all together.”

Louis nods his head, well past agreeing with someone just to protect their feelings. “Probably yeah. But you’re sure about it?”

“Yeah. ‘s just not me anymore, y’ know?”

“Pez know?”

Zayn inhales through his nose. “Actually told me I should wait ‘til you were there. I didn’t listen.”

Louis laughs despite himself, “better listen to the missus next time, mate.”

“You’re telling me?” Louis can feel Zayn’s smile against the top of his head. “Nick, eh?”

“Nick, yeah,” Louis sighs, and his throat feels tight, “I’m pretty stupid, huh?” He feels a bit sore in a way that’s usually pleasant. He’s had many a one night stand before, but he’s never _known_ the man he slept with. Knowing Nick, and _liking_ Nick, and knowing Nick only viewed him as a one nighter, hurts. Not in a good way.

“Nah bro. You’re just, like, less suspicious when you’re drunk.”

Louis has spent his whole life being told he’s too suspicious and now that someone’s telling him the opposite, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as good as he’d imagined. It’s not a character development he wants to have made.

“And look at where that’s got me.” Self-deprecation has always been one of his turn-to methods of deflection.

Zayn’s always been the best at picking up cues on where to change the conversation, “have you changed these sheets?”

Louis slaps him. _Of course_ he changed the sheets, they’d smelt of Nick.

\---

Liam forces them out of bed when he, Niall, and Harry arrive back because apparently he has ‘news’ or whatever. Louis makes a big deal about it, because it was either be a bitch, or grab the closest bottle of alcohol. Being a bitch will probably end in some serious drinking, to be honest, but at least Louis won’t feel quite as emotionally damaged whilst doing so.

Harry has always been notoriously bad with openings, and this time is no different, “Nick had a rule about not kissing you.”

“Oh yeah, Harry. _Fantastic_ way of intro-ing that,” Niall rolls his eyes at Harry. “What he _means_ to say is that Nick has a rule about not kissing straight boys.”

Louis stares wide-eyed at the both of them, completely and utterly confused until… “Nick doesn’t know I’m not straight?”

Liam’s solemnly shaking his head, and Zayn claps Louis on the shoulder, “there you go, Tommo. Still too suspicious.”

“Nick’s in, then?” Louis demands.

Harry is slow to answer, voice cautious. “What are you planning?”

“He may have thought I was straight, but he still kissed me back when he knew I was drunk.” He’s halfway out the door by the time Liam asks, “but what about how he slept with you?”

“That’s different, Liam. He was drunk too. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten hammered and slept with someone.”

Yes, he’s well aware that his logic is flawed.

\---

Standing in front of Nick’s door feels like the bit in Hugh Grant movies where music starts playing, and he takes a big breath, and shows up at Julia Robert’s movie shoot.

It could go either way, really. He could knock, and Nick could be bad mouthing him to one of the production crew, or he could knock, and Nick could confess his love for him in front of an entire room of journos.

Louis has the big breath covered, thinks he’s got it so covered he might be on the edge of hyperventilating, but he taps on the door despite himself. As soon as he does, he regrets it, wishes he’d thought out what he wanted to say to Nick, wishes he hadn’t even showed up, it would never work out anyway.

Just as he’s about to walk (read: run) away, the door opens.

Nick looks terrible. His hair is flat against his forehead and his eyes are red rimmed and puffy. He looks like didn’t get any sleep at all. “Did you even stay afterwards?” which isn’t what he’d wanted to say at all, but it’s out there now.

Nick tilts his chin and Louis notices that he gets pigeon-toed when he’s nervous. “Come again?”

“After we had sex,” Louis clarifies. “Did you sneak out in the morning, or did you just wait for me to go to sleep so you could leave?”

Nick laughs nervously. “Can we have this conversation inside? Don’t fancy being spotted talking to Louis Tomlinson on my doorstep.”

Louis doesn’t wait for Nick to move before he brushes past him and into Nick’s flat. He’s never been inside it before now, and it’s oddly perfect.

It fits Nick to a T, the older man is house proud in a way that Louis hasn’t managed to achieve yet, and everything - though cluttered - is orderly. It feels like a home, like a disorganised mad house and Louis thinks he likes Nick even more.

“So? Did you?” Never let it be said that Louis can’t be a proper stubborn prick when need be.

Nick sighs, “I snuck out in the morning.”

It still stings but Louis likes the fact that he spent one night with Nick pressed along his side, takes comfort in the fact that he hadn’t imagined the warm weight of Nick’s breath at the back of his neck. “Thought so. You snore.”

“And you kick in your sleep.”

“It’s a defense mechanism. Weeds out the weak ones.”

“That mean I’m strong then?” Nick asks. “Since I stayed?”

“Ah, but you ruined that when you left didn’t you.” Louis lifts his eyebrows once, and purses his lips at Nick.

“I don’t kiss straight boys.” They’re standing in the middle of Nick’s living room, two strides of distance separating them.

“So Niall tells me,” Louis fusses with his hair. “I’m not straight though, is the thing.”

“So Niall tells me,” Nick mimics, and Louis smiles despite himself.

“Do you’ve a rule about kissing one night stands?” Louis is almost too scared to ask, but if this is meant to be his Hugh Grant moment then he’s not about to waste it.

Nick grimaces, and Louis’ heart falls through his stomach. He goes to leave, but Nick makes a choking noise. “You’re not that, Tomlinson.”

“You sure have a funny way of showing it.” Even talking about it here, standing in front of Nick and having it pretty conclusively proven that they’d both gotten the wrong end of the stick… it makes Louis feel itchy all over. Makes him have flashbacks to how miserable he’d felt when he’d woken up and found Nick not there.

Nick looks torn, “I took advantage of you. You were drunk and-”

Louis shakes his head. “We were _both_ drunk. If you took advantage of me, I took advantage of you. And do you really want to make me feel even worse about what happened?”

He’s being a shit, he know it, but that’s how he and Nick have operated the past week. They both act like arseholes towards each other, and they both know when to stop and ply the other with tea. As if he knows what Louis’s thinking, Nick smirks.

“Not right now, but if I’m going to be your boyfriend, I need to have some blackmail material stored up.”

“Is that right?” Louis takes a step towards Nick. “And who says I want you as your boyfriend?”

Nick closes the remaining space between them, and places gentle hands on Louis’ elbows. Louis hates how big Nick’s hands are. “Three fifths of your band say so.”

Louis rocks up onto his toes and presses his mouth to Nick’s.

It’s different, kissing him without tasting wine on his tongue. It’s nice, actually. Makes Louis feel like more than a drunken hookup. And, when Nick slips his hands under the hem of Louis’ shirt and rubs gentle circles into the small of his back with his fingertips, Louis thinks he doesn’t _actually_ hate Nick’s hands.

He feels safe with Nick in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. He feels looked after, and he’s still mad at him for making assumptions and being absolute _pants_ at communication, but Nick’s right. Louis _does_ want to be his boyfriend.

He scrapes his teeth along Nick’s bottom lip, before he pulls away. Nick whines softly, and Louis snaps his teeth in the vicinity of Nick’s nose.

“Can we pick this back up later? I’ve got to go talk to three fourths of my band about confidentiality.” He presses a parting kiss to Nick’s lips and closes his eyes against a flood of emotion.

“Oh? Three fourths?”

Louis grins over his shoulder from the door. “I told you I’d fix things with Zayn when he was back in the country.”

Nick laughs and instructs him not to go easy on Harry just because he’s a mutual friend of theirs.

Louis really, really likes his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warnings** for mild internalised biphobia which occurs before the timeline of the fic, for two people kissing while drunk and having sex while intoxicated, for mentions of casual sex. It's not too extreme, and it's all addressed and dealt with.


End file.
